The Board and Its Superintendent:  Building Relationships (AAC #1833)

School board governance is complex and differs from district to district. This raises the question: Why are some boards more effective at governing than others? The secret to successful governance revolves around a healthy working relationship between the superintendent and board, in addition to the governance team participating in ongoing professional development.

The purpose of this course is designed to help the board and superintendent govern more effectively by providing prospective, current and future superintendents with the knowledge and skills to establish the ideal relationship with various school boards. The success of the superintendent is contingent upon the success of the school board and vice-versa. By enhancing working relationships between the board and the superintendent by identifying and teaching superintendents on key areas of board governance, one can reasonably forecast that the superintendent will be successful in leading the board to become high functioning.

This Academy will give superintendents the skills and tools they need to be successful and includes a review of the following:

• School board legal status and authority
• School board/superintendent roles and duties
• How to seek and transition to superintendency
• How to build and sustain a high-quality relationship
• The power of the governance team
• The importance of professional development
• The governance team and community relations

 Outcomes:

• Participants will analyze the various roles and duties that exist on governance teams between the superintendent and school board and will make various inferences regarding how these roles and duties may support or hamper the relationship between the superintendent and the school board. And, participants will justify why a superintendent may or may not be a good fit for various school districts and predict how superintendents could adapt to the changing demographic of schools boards.

• Participants will distinguish and contract between the written and unwritten board expectations of the superintendent and will make a determination regarding how to prioritize board expectations. Participants will utilize data to support their conclusions and theorize how various board expectations may support or hamper bard/superintendent relations.

• Participants will propose various ways how to construct, modify and/or make other improvements concerning various superintendent evaluation models in order to assist the board in analyzing the performance of the superintendent. Participants will describe alternative ways how the superintendent could self-evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses and demonstrate how inferences can be made concerning how a superintendent’s performance may impact superintendent and board relations.

• Participants will propose, analyze, and dissect various district-wide strategic plans. Participants will predict and explain why various operational aspects of the district warrant stakeholder input and all theorize why community involvement could impact the relationship between the superintendent and the school board.